Turning shapes in your head
Mirror Mind
Is the second shape the same as the first, just turned around, or is it a mirror image? You have 60 seconds.
How to play
- Two block shapes appear. Press Same if the right one is the left one turned, or Mirror if it is a reflection.
- Right answers add a point and wrong answers take one away, so guessing does not help.
- Shapes get bigger as you go. At the end you see the pairs you missed and why.
What it trains
Mental rotation, a classic part of spatial reasoning. Psychologists have studied it since the 1970s: the further a shape has to be turned, the longer people take to decide.
Like any brain game, it makes you better at this kind of puzzle. There is little evidence that games like this raise IQ itself, so treat it as practice and fun.
Learn the trick
Find a landmark. Pick the most distinctive part of the shape, such as the end of the longest arm, and find it in the second shape first.
Then check what is on its left and right. Turning keeps the order of the parts around the shape. A mirror image swaps left and right, so the order runs the other way.
Turn the shape the short way. A quarter turn is easier to imagine than three quarter turns in the other direction.
Speed comes from practice, not from guessing. Wrong answers cost a point, so a steady pace beats a rushed one.